Thursday, April 13, 2006

Neighbours

When we first bought our house, we thought it was a pretty good neighbourhood. We had a fancy, rich house on the one side, the other was a super sweet 90 yr. old man. Behind us was a young family who liked our dog. You can't argue with that. But then the 90 yr. old man turned 93 and the winter of '04/05 wasn't kind to him, so his family urged him to sell his home and move into a seniors complex. Goodbye Floyd, you are greatly missed. The house next to us sat empty for a few months. Then we heard it sold. We started seeing a younger couple come and go, but never saw any furniture. Then we saw a young native mother come, an older native woman go and yesterday a group of native teen boys sat on the fence smoking. Now to make myself perfectly clear, I have nothing against Natives. Unfortunately I worked in a pawn shop for a year, so I got to see the side that don't give a flying flick. There were those who did have good jobs and were nice people, but I will always remember the others. Like I said, I have nothing against Natives, but I do when they start messing with my stuff. Case in point this morning at 6 a.m. a beer bottle was thrown against our house (outer bedroom wall) and smashed into little pieces. Steve brushed it all up and put it back on their sidewalk, but I told him I'm afraid they'll just kick it into the grass between our two houses and I'd rather not that happen. See when these two houses were built, the two old guys who inhabited them were great friends. So they had a stone walkway built between the houses and they're just very close together. We've been wanting to put up a fence since we moved, now we're thinking we'll expand it a bit, the length of our house. Sigh. Times like these I really wish we lived on an acreage.

In other news at Mom's on Tuesday we watched a video about children who take tantrums. I know a few who do (mine included). It was pretty good. A few things were learnt. The speaker, Kelly Nault, really pushed trying to get your kids involved. Get them to help clean the house, or put groceries away. Yes it may take a long time, and patience is a virtue, but come 5-6 years when we want them to help out, they'll know how and it's easier then telling them to NOT help now and expect them to later. We got into table groups after and talked about ways to keep our kids occupied (other than TV....which sadly my kids are watching right now while I type this) and there were alot of cool ideas. Like finger painting, sidewalk chalk, filling a 9x13 pan with rice krispies and letting them play in it with little trucks, etc., putting snow (if you still have some) in the bathtub and letting them play with it, bubbles, getting them to help gardening, etc. It was pretty good. Another thing that Kelly pushed was having Mom's make a 100 Wish List. She said that Mom's without dreams are Mom's without hope (or something similiar) and that's no good. So then we talked about some of our dreams. Like I said, it was all good and I enjoyed it.

No Mom's next week. The Clothing Sale is on the 21st, so come on out for some good buys. The final potluck is on the 25th, there's always good food. Have a great week and pray for my new "neighbours"! :)